One of the biggest beneficiaries of Google's decision to ditch its aged Reader and drop the RSS service that had powered virtually every third-party news reader, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Feedly said in April that it would kick off a paid version of its free service.

It did that today.

Dubbed Feedly Pro, the Web-based service adds search, letting users quickly find already-read articles; enables an HTTPS secure connection; provides one-click saving of articles to Evernote, the popular catch-all note-taking and organizing application; and puts users at the front of the support line.

Feedly will charge $5 per month or $45 annually for the pro service.

To jump-start the service -- and raise a half million dollars -- Feedly offered what it called a "lifetime edition" today for $99.99. It plans to limit the offer to the first 5,000 customers.

"The funds will finance the hardware needed to make Feedly Pro generally available and help support the next batch of features," Feedly said on the page promoting the paid version.

The lifetime deal is available today, but Feedly plans to launch the $45-per-year subscription later. The free version of the service will remain in place.

When Google announced in mid-March that it would kill Google Reader on July 1, Feedly became the preferred destination for millions of refugees because it was the first to promise users it would craft a homegrown clone of the Google Reader API (application programming interface).